Another double header day.
First up was "Giant" with John Lithgow. This told a story about author Roald Dahl and the controversy about an antisemitic statement he made publicly. Also in the cast were Aya Cash & several British actors. The show originally played in London, with pretty much the same cast where it received tremendous acclaim. They then brought it to New York for its first showing here. The acting was absolutely stellar. The story was provocative. We all loved it. Several of the cast members and the show itself has many Tony nominations.
In the evening was the satire of the movie Titanic-- "Titanique"which used the music of Celine Dion-- basically, a jukebox musical. As I know none of her music, I did not recognize most of the music ( and I am not a fan of her). The audience was ecstatic, and their screaming and yelling and applauding constantly was pretty irritating to me. Clearly I was not at all the target audience for this show. The pop culture references were lost on me. I will say that the leading lady ( Marla Mindell ) who satirized Céline Dion did an excellent job. Several of the voices were excellent. The cast also included Melissa Barrera who was in the film of "In the Heights". The set was very interesting. And for me, the most interesting thing was that Jim Parsons played Rose's mother. But overall I'm not a fan of this show. I felt similarly to the musical we saw last fall--" Queen of Versailles" and it had a short run. This one I think will make more money by far because of the appeal to a target audience. I know I'm a snob when I say that the very broad humor appealed to a less urbane audience.
